'History is bunk' - the meaning and origin of this phrase History is bunk Live in the present, not the past. Origin Henry Ford (1863 - 1947) was the founder of the Ford Motor Company, the father of the assembly line and of mass-production, and one of the wealthiest and most famous people who ever lived. However, history is bunk is probably one of the two things that most of us can recall that he ever said. The other being "People can have the Model T in any colour - so long as it's black". Did Henry Ford say 'history is bunk? Well, more or less, yes. What he actually said about history was: "History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history that we make today." (Chicago Tribune, 1916). His gung ho, don't concern yourself with the past - live in the present philosophy was also apparent in a couple of other quotations: "You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do." "If you think you can, you can.

And if you think you can't, you're right." In the Series 3, Episode 7 edition of the BBC's QI quiz show, Stephen Fry made this comment: There's no evidence that Ford actually ever said, "Any color you like so long as it's black." Fry's researchers would do well to read Ford's autobiography, My Life and Work, 1922, which includes this passage: In 1909 I announced one morning, without any previous warning, that in the future we were going to build only one model, that the model was going to be "Model T," and that the chassis would be exactly the same for all cars, and I remarked: "Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black." In is likely that Ford was being somewhat playful in making that remark. Model Ts were, in fact, offered in a choice of colour early in the car's lifetime around 1908, and again after 1926. The statement was true when Ford's biography was published, in 1922, and when he was cutting costs by using a type of quick-drying paint that was only then available in black.

Henry Ford on Why History is Bunk - What Did He Really Say? Henry Ford on Why History is Bunk - What Did He Really Say? Did Henry Ford Actually Say "History is Bunk" - and What Did He Mean? American motor vehicle industry pioneer Henry Ford (1863 - 1947) standing next to the first and the ten millionth Model-T Ford. Keystone Features / Hulton Archive / Getty Images By K. Kris Hirst Updated November 08, 2015. One of the best known quotations of the inventor and entrepreneur Henry Ford is "History is bunk": Oddly enough, he never said exactly that, but he did say something along those lines many times during his life. Say, what do I care about Napoleon ? What do we care about what they did 500 or 1,000 years ago? I don't know whether Napoleon did or did not try to get across and I don't care. It means nothing to me. History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's dam is the history we make today.

May 25, 1916, interview with Charles N. Wheeler in the Chicago Tribune, cited in Butterfield. According to the historian Jessica Swigger , the reason there are so many versions of the statement floating around the internet is that Ford spent years trying to reframe and clarify the comment to himself and the rest of the world. We're going to start something! I'm going to start up a museum and give people a true picture of the development of the country. That's the only history that is worth observing, that you can preserve in itself. We're going to build a museum that's going to show industrial history, and it won't be bunk! continue reading below our video What are the Seven Wonders of the World 1919, quoted from in his Reminiscences, edited by E.G. Liebold, in the Ford Archives, as cited in Butterfield. Ford sued the Chicago Tribune for libel in 1919 (in an editorial the Tribune had called him an "anarchist" and "ignorant idealist") and in court he was quizzed hard about the "history is bunk" quote: Counsel for the Tribune Elliot G.

Stevenson: But history was bunk, and art was no good? That was your attitude in 1916? Henry Ford: I did not say it was bunk. It was bunk to me, but I did not say... Stevenson: [interrupting quickly] It was bunk to you? Ford: It was not much to me. Stevenson: What do you mean by that? Ford: Well, I haven't very much use for it. I didn't need it very bad. Stevenson: What do you mean? Do you think we can provide for the future and care wisely with reference to the future in matters like preparation for defense, or anything of that sort, without knowing the history of what has happened in the past? Ford: When we got into the war, the past didn't amount to much. History didn't usually last a week. Stevenson: What do you mean, "History didn't last a week"? Ford: In the present war, airships and things we used were out of date in a week. Stevenson: What does that have to do with history?

Many of the sources today interpret the meaning of the quote to show that Ford was an iconoclast who disdained the importance of the past: but there is evidence that that industrial history of his was decidedly important to him. According to Butterfield, in his later life, Ford saved 14 million personal and business documents in his personal archives and built over 100 structures for the Henry Ford Museum-Greenfield Village-Edison Institute complex at Dearborn. Sources This article is a part of the About.com guide to the Archaeology Quotations Butterfield R. 1965. Henry Ford, the Wayside Inn, and the Problem of "History Is Bunk". Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 77:53-66. Swigger JI. 2008. History is Bunk: Historical Memories at Henry Ford's Greenfield Village. Austin: University of Texas. Upward GC. 1979. A Home for Our Heritage: The Building and Growth of Greenfield Village and Henry Ford Museum. Dearborn, Michigan: The Henry Ford Museum Press. Lockerby, P. 2011. Henry Ford - Quote: "History is Bunk".

Science 2.0 30 May. Wheeler, CN. 1916. Interview with Henry Ford. The Chicago Tribune, May 25, 1916, cited in Butterfield. LRC Blog Karen De Coster An article on LRC today mentions the of Mother of All Misrepresented Quotes, Henry Ford’s “History is bunk.” I want to expand on that. A fuller quote is, “History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.” -1916. Now I’ve spent many hours at the Benson Ford Research Center in nearby Dearborn, MI, which houses the Ford Motor Company historical archives from 1903-1955, and includes just about anything that one is able to research in regards to Henry Ford. Ford is perhaps the most misunderstood and misrepresented of all Americans. Indeed it was his own unenlightenment and coarseness that often got him into trouble.

This Ford “quote moment” came about in May of 1916, when a Chicago Tribune reporter was questioning Ford about his posture against the buildup of the American military, and the reporter reminded Ford of the greatness of the British Empire’s military as it stopped Napoleon’s Army from crossing the English Channel. Ford’s full quote followed a blow-off of the reporter’s comment on Napolean (I don’t have the exact cite on me at this time). Ford, however, did support Wilson in 1916, as the “President who kept us out of the war.” Wilson later talked Ford into running for the U.S. Senate, wherein he narrowly lost the election. As noted by Globe and Mail writer Robert Fulford , several years ago, historian Eugen Weber, in an essay called “Doing History,” did an analysis of Ford’s full meaning by actually looking at all context, and not just the shortened quotation that ran in a May 1916 Chicago Tribune article. A few years ago, in an essay called “Doing History,” Weber analyzed Henry Ford’s famous remark, “History is bunk.” Since Ford was a bigot and a tyrant, that’s usually quoted as an example of ignorance.

But Weber used it to demonstrate that we can understand nothing except through context. Ford actually said “History is more or less bunk,” which is slightly different, and he said it in 1916, in the middle of the First World War. Ford thought that devotion to the past prevents us from grappling with the present and may encourage us to make war out of historical grievance. In 1914 all the European leaders knew history, Ford said, yet they blundered into the worst war ever. On another occasion Ford recalled looking in American history books “to learn how our forefathers harrowed the land”; he discovered that historians barely mentioned harrows, the iron-toothed rakes essential to modern farming. Harrows, Ford argued, meant more in history than guns and speeches. When history “excludes harrows, and all the rest of daily life,” then history is bunk. Maybe Ford felt strongly about harrows because he manufactured them, Weber says; even so, he was right when he argued that history should tell how ordinary people lived. And Ford won. The rise of social history began in the 1920s with the Annales movement in France, and has spread ever since.

As Weber says, “The sort of history that Ford wanted is pretty much the history that we do today.” Ford was a great proponent of learning from history, and using the past to promote progress and future, especially concerning, yes, war, as well as captains of industry. From page 43-44 of Henry Ford’s My Life and Work (1922): One sees them all about—men who do not know that yesterday is past, and who woke up this morning with their last years ideas […] there is a subtle danger in a man thinking that he is ‘fixed’ for life. It indicates that the next jolt of the wheel of progress is going to fling him off. Remember, Robert McCormick’s Tribune also ran a headline stating “Ford is an Anarchist,” for which the paper was sued – for libel – by Ford. It was during the ensuing trial that Ford was mocked as being ignorant of history in his own right. Indeed he was basically an uneducated man having grown up in a rural environment, or as author Danial L. Lewis refers to him, a “genius ignoramus.” Thus The Nation ran this commentary on Ford: Now the mystery is finally dispelled.

Henry Ford is a Yankee mechanic, pure and simple; quite uneducated ….. but with naturally good instincts and some sagacity. He has achieved wealth but not greatness; he cannot rise above the defects of education, at least as to public matters. So the unveiling of Mr. Ford has much of the pitiful about it, if not of the tragic. We would rather have the curtain drawn, the popular ideal unshattered. ( The Public Image of Henry Ford , Daniel L. Lewis, p 106) Quote Details: Henry Ford: History is more or... - The Quotations Page Quotation #24950 from Classic Quotes : History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's dam is the history we made today.

Henry Ford , Interview in Chicago Tribune, May 25th, 1916 US automobile industrialist (1863 - 1947) More quotations on: [ History ] Henry Ford - Quote: "History Is Bunk" | Science 2.0 Henry Ford - Quote: "History Is Bunk" Henry Ford - Quote: "History Is Bunk" It isn't an urban myth: Henry Ford really did say: "History is bunk." It is somewhat ironic that Henry Ford's words - "history is bunk" - are now a part of the historic record. What is not clear from most writings about Henry Ford is the context in which he gave his views of history. I hope to remedy that defect somewhat. "Understanding Henry Ford is more than a puzzle; it is a pursuit." The Detroit Saturday Night, cited by - Henry A. Wise Wood, The New York Times, May 17, 1916 History is a contest of evidence, much like a legal case. Discovering facts is somewhat like archaeology: you need to dig. A senior archaeologist at a 'dig' once told me that most Roman remains in Britain have no historical value.

This counter-intuitive fact is based in sound logic: we already have more than enough evidence that the Romans were in Britain. In the same vein, most information about Henry Ford's views on history are of no historical value: we already know that he did not place any value whatsoever on historical studies. What we don't know is why. Much of the information on the web about Henry Ford's view of history is bunk. A majority of sites claim that he never said: "History is bunk.", but rather, he actually said: "History is more or less bunk." As I said before: that is bunk. Henry Ford actually said both of those things about history, and many more besides. He also said: "History is myth." He said that to Henry A. Wise Wood, of which, more below. As to the "history is more or less bunk", he is quoted as using those exact words in the Crawfordsville Review, June 6, 1916.

It was long after that, in 1921 that he made the widely cited statement: "History is bunk." History is bunk - New York Times, Oct 28 1921 In archaeology and library research you can make a claim based on the easy pickings that lie on the surface or you can break into a sweat as you dig deeper. But it is not enough to dig deep. You must sift every spadeful, and sift it fine. Truth is most often found in the tiniest of grains: it is easy to miss if you don't focus intently. ... truth eludes us if we do not concentrate with total attention on its pursuit. And even while it eludes us, the illusion still lingers of knowing it and leads to many misunderstandings. Alexander Solzhenitsyn - address at Harvard Class Day Afternoon Exercises, Thursday, June 8, 1978 History is myth - New York Times May 15 1916 Henry Ford was a master of the debate-stifling Ford flurry - a technique known in modern times as the Gish gallop .

The technique is simple: make as many "statements of fact" as possible in the time or space allowed and then claim victory in the debate for every point not refuted. Henry A. Wise Wood, a noted historian and author of books such as Money Hunger , reported an interview with Henry Ford which shows Ford to have been something of a conspiracy theorist and wingnut. A WILD MENTAL JOURNEY WITH FORD History Is Myth, Two Bankers Invented This War, Flags Are Fatal and Preparedness Talk Is Eastern Scare Gas. By HENRY A. WISE WOOD. New York. May 15, 1916-To the Editor of The New York Times: On May 8. while in Detroit for the purpose of speaking on preparedness, I spent several hours with Henry Ford. I found Mr. Ford eager to talk about national defense, but unwilling to discuss it. While volleying his assertions with great rapidity, he refused to pause long enough to permit any one of them to be examined and dealt with.

To facts which I submitted he responded with a brief word of dismissal or with a sweeping denial that they were facts: sometimes with the remark that he could not consider them because he himself did not know them to be facts. ... When In our " discussion " or a nation's need for defensive strength history was appealed to, Mr. Ford replied that he did not believe in history, that history was of the past and had no bearing upon the present and that, there being nothing to be learned from it, history need not be studied nor considered. The American Revolution he refused to have touched upon, saying that the Revolution was " tradition," that he did not believe In tradition. New York Times - May 15 1916 The interview should be understood in the context that Henry A. Wise Wood supported a strong military and a preparedness for war based on his expertise in historical studies, whereas Henry Ford opposed such preparedness based on - well,we don't really know. From what is reported of this interview, Henry Ford seems to have had a very shallow understanding of history and a lack of trust in the little he did understand.

Small wonder that he failed to research the prior art of farming mechanization and claimed - in a New York Times interview June 19 1915 - that he invented 'an automobile tractor'. Greeks flew kites? The news article in which Henry Ford is quoted as saying "History is bunk" offers an intriguing puzzle to the modern reader. What did Henry Ford mean when he said: "History is bunk. What difference does it make how many times the Greeks flew their kites?" It appears that Mr Ford was wrongly crediting the Ancient Greeks with having flown kites. But what was it in then-current topics that raised the issue of kites? During Henry Ford's lifetime, heavier-than-air flight went from being a dream to a reality. Experiments in flight began with gliders and kites. In January 1903, William A. Eddy - an expert in the science of kites - successfully replicated an experiment by Alexander Graham Bell. Eddy confirmed Bell's assertion that a heavier-than-air machine in the form of a box kite could carry the weight of a man and an engine.

In December 1903 the Wright brothers made history - but not much of a stir in the newspapers - when their 'untethered box kite' flew at Kitty Hawk. Most reports of this success did not make the front pages. The Clinton Morning Age Dec 17 1903 - Flying machine proves a success Whether on the front page or an inside page, common to all reports is the description of the Wright brothers' machine as a kite. A flying machine that flies - The Evening News, Dec 18 1903 By 1921, when Henry Ford made his remarks about 'Greeks flying kites', the word 'kite' was in popular use as a slang term for any kind of airplane. In that context, according to myth, Daedalus and Icarus 'flew kites'. Maybe Henry Ford was right in this one instance: what has a Greek myth to do with the science of flight? I would go so far as to side with Henry Ford and say of the science of flight that a history is bunk if it mentions Daedalus but not William Abner Eddy .

HISTORY IS BUNK HISTORY IS BUNK Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it. - George Santayana History is more or less bunk. - Henry Ford WELL, I'M WITH HENRY. Billions of people are sincerely trying their damnedest to learn the lessons of history, mostly for that most elemental of reasons: to make money, and they're failing. You show me somebody who can predict the future, using the only valid test that I can think of: turning a profit on it, and I'll revise my beliefs accordingly. Meanwhile, I don't think that the lessons of history are worth, in the immortal words of vice-president John Nance Garner, a pitcher of warm piss. History just plain changes the rules on you all the time. See, it's an illusion: you think that you should be able to predict the future from learning about the past because you can look back along the inevitable path that events actually took and see what made them happen. But, looking into the infinitely branching tree of the future is quite another matter, if I may say so. You're in 1970, OK? I ask you to predict, to foretell the general sexual climate of 1994.

Boy, would you have been wrong. And, you had all the data right under your nose, too. Syphilis, influenza, the Black Death. Two-thirds of the native populations of the Americas wiped out by imported diseases. People aren't the only thing that travel about on ships and airplanes. Another big problem is that history is constantly being re-written to suit the fashion of the day, becoming, in the words of Matthew Arnold, "that huge Mississippi of falsehood." How can you learn anything from something that isn't even vaguely reliable? Was Columbus a saintly adventurer or a satanic creep? Does it matter? Did he discover America by accident or by design? Are Native Americans indigenous in any proper sense of the word or were they just here longer? Do the descendants of Sioux Indians have any valid prior claim to any of this real estate? Are the descendants of Europeans responsible for the bad stuff that their ancestors did? Are the descendants of Black Africans entitled to some sort of reparation for things that did not happen to them personally? Is an understanding of history of the slightest assistance in any of this wrangling? Jeez. August 18, 1994 Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.

- George Santayana A Life of Reason, Book One: Reason & Common Sense, 1916) History is more or less bunk. - Henry Ford (interview with Charles N. Wheeler, Chicago Tribune, May 25, 1916) John Nance Garner (1868 - 1969) held office from 1933 to 1941. "People aren't the only thing that travel about on ships and airplanes." echoes a remark made by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover in reference to Communists, "A good many things go around in the dark besides Santa Claus." Address to the John Marshall Republican Club, St. Louis, Missouri, December 16, 1935. Matthew Arnold (1822 - 1888), "On the breast of that huge Mississippi of falsehood called History, a foam-bell more or less is no consequence." Essays in Criticism (1865) "Literary Influence of Academies" (1864) The subject recalls the song by Sting, "History Will Teach Us Nothing," from the album Nothing Like the Sun (1987).

3/17/99 Henry Ford - Wikiquote Henry Ford Jump to: navigation , search An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous. Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black. Henry Ford ( July 30 , 1863 – April 7 , 1947 ) was the founder of the Ford Motor Company . He was one of the first to apply assembly line manufacturing to the mass production of affordable automobiles. Contents Quotes[ edit ] 1910s I don’t know whether Napoleon did or did not try to get across there and I don’t care. I don’t know much about history, and I wouldn’t give a nickel for all the history in the world. It means nothing to me. History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's dam is the history we make today. Interview in Chicago Tribune (25 May 1916) An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous.

Remarks from the witness stand, to a court in Mount Clemens, Michigan (July 1919), as quoted in Thesaurus of Epigrams: A New Classified Collection of Witty Remarks, Bon Mots and Toasts (1948) by Edmund Fuller, p. 162 International financiers are behind all war. They are what is called the international Jew: German-Jews, French-Jews, English-Jews, American-Jews … the Jew is the threat. Henry Ford, quoted in New York World, 1919, as cited in: Martin Allen (2002). Hidden Agenda: How the Duke of Windsor Betrayed the Allies. p. 55-56 1920s So, while the people are indeed supreme over the written Constitution, the spiritual constitution is supreme over them. The French Revolutionists wrote constitutions too—every drunken writer among them tossed off a constitution. Where are they? All vanished. Why? Because they were not in harmony with the constitution of the universe. The power of the Constitution is not dependent on any Government, but on its inherent rightness and practicability. Henry Ford (1922).

Ford Ideals: Being a Selection from "Mr. Ford's Page" in The Dearborn Independent. p. 323; as cited in: William A. Levinson, Henry Ford, Samuel Crowther. The Expanded and Annotated My Life and Work: Henry Ford's Universal Code for World-Class Success. CRC Press, 2013. p. xxix I've never made a flight in an airplane, and I don't know that I'm particularly anxious to. I would, though, like to take a trip in a dirigible . Bring one out here some time, won't you, Doctor Eckener , and give me a ride? Raymond J. Brown. " Henry Ford Says, 'There Is Always Room for More' ," in: Popular Science, Vol. 106, nr. 2 (Feb 1925), p. 37 I adopted the theory of Reincarnation when I was twenty six. Religion offered nothing to the point. Even work could not give me complete satisfaction. Work is futile if we cannot utilise the experience we collect in one life in the next. When I discovered Reincarnation it was as if I had found a universal plan.

I realised that there was a chance to work out my ideas. Time was no longer limited. I was no longer a slave to the hands of the clock. Genius is experience. Some seem to think that it is a gift or talent, but it is the fruit of long experience in many lives. Some are older souls than others, and so they know more. The discovery of Reincarnation put my mind at ease. If you preserve a record of this conversation, write it so that it puts men’s minds at ease. I would like to communicate to others the calmness that the long view of life gives to us. Interview in the San Francisco Examiner (26 August 1928) There's just one thing that's permanent in this world, and that's change . And when a man gets too old to change, why, then, he dies. And after that, who knows? Do we go on somewhere else? We'd all like to think so; it seems sometimes as though something inside us was telling us that we do. But if we do live on, then one thing is sure: The fellows who are afraid all the time that they may lose what they've got will lose out over there just the way they lose out here.

And the big prizes will keep right on going to the fellows who do their duty and have faith. That's all there is to happiness , according to my way of thinking—just doing your duty and having faith . Interview with Bruce Barton, "It Would Be Fun To Start Over Again," The American Magazine , April 1921 Money doesn't change men. It merely unmasks them. If a man is naturally selfish , or arrogant, or greedy, the money brings it out; that's all. Interview with Bruce Barton, "It Would Be Fun To Start Over Again," The American Magazine, April 1921 1930s The provision of a whole new system of electric generation emancipated industry from the leather belt and line shaft, for it eventually became possible to provide each tool with its own electric motor. This may seem only a detail of minor importance. In fact, modern industry could not be carried out with the belt and line shaft for a number of reasons. The motor enabled machinery to be arranged in the order of the work, and that alone has probably doubled the efficiency of industry, for it has cut out a tremendous amount of useless handling and hauling.

The belt and line shaft were also tremendously wasteful – so wasteful indeed that no factory could be really large, for even the longest line shaft was small according to modern requirements. Also high speed tools were impossible under the old conditions – neither the pulleys nor the belts could stand modern speeds. Without high speed tools and the finer steels which they brought about, there could be nothing of what we call modern industry. Henry Ford and Samuel Crowther (1930). Edison as I Know Him. Cosmopolitan Book Company. p. 15 Through all the years that I have been in business I have never yet found our business bad as a result of any outside force. It has always been due to some defect in our own company, and whenever we located and repaired that defect our business became good again - regardless of what anyone else might be doing. And it will always be found that this country has nationally bad business when business men are drifting, and that business is good when men take hold of their own affairs, put leadership into them, and push forward in spite of obstacles. Only disaster can result when the fundamental principles of business are disregarded and what looks like the easiest way is taken.

These fundamentals, as I see them, are: (1) To make an ever increasingly large quantity of goods of the best possible quality, to make them in the best and most economical fashion, and to force them out onto the market. (2) To strive always for higher quality and lower prices as well as lower costs. (3) To raise wages gradually but continuously B and never to cut them. (4) To get the goods to the consumer in the most economical manner so that the benefits of low cost production may reach him. These fundamentals are all summed up in the single word 'service'... The service starts with discovering what people need and then supplying that need according to the principles that have just been given. Henry Ford in: Justus George Frederick (1930), A Philosophy of Production: A Symposium, p. 32; as cited in: Morgen Witzel (2003) Fifty Key Figures in Management. p. 196 The average man won't really do a day's work unless he is caught and cannot get out of it. There is plenty of work to do if people would do it.

Quoted in The Zanesville Sunday Times-Signal [Zanesville, Ohio] (15 March 1931): On reasons for the Great Depression Let them fail; let everybody fail! I made my fortune when I had nothing to start with, by myself and my own ideas. Let other people do the same thing. If I lose everything in the collapse of our financial structure, I will start in at the beginning and build it up again. February 11, 1934; quoted in: Peter Collier, ‎David Horowitz (2001). The Fords: An American Epic. p. 108 Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it. As quoted in The High School Teacher, Vol. XI (1935), p. 60 What we need is some financial engineers . Saturday Evening Post , Feb. 11, 1936 My Life and Work (1922)[ edit ] Henry Ford and Samuel Crowther (1922), My Life and Work , Garden City Publishing Company, Inc.

We have only started on our development of our country — we have not as yet, with all our talk of wonderful progress, done more than scratch the surface. The progress has been wonderful enough — but when we compare what we have done with what there is to do, then our past accomplishments are as nothing. When we consider that more power is used merely in ploughing the soil than is used in all the industrial establishments of the country put together, an inkling comes of how much opportunity there b ahead. And now, with so many countries of the world in ferment and with so much unrest everywhere, is an excellent time to suggest something of the things that may be done — in the light of what has been done. When one speaks of increasing power, machinery, and industry there comes up a picture of a cold, metallic sort of world in which great factories will drive away the trees, the flowers, the birds, and the green fields. And that then we shall have a world composed of metal machines and human machines. With all of that I do not agree.

I think that unless we know more about machines and their use, unless we better understand the mechanical portion of life, we cannot have the time to enjoy the trees, and the birds, and the flowers, and the green fields. p. 1; as cited in: William A. Levinson, Henry Ford, Samuel Crowther. The Expanded and Annotated My Life and Work: Henry Ford's Universal Code for World-Class Success. CRC Press, 2013. p. xxvii I am not a reformer . I think there is entirely too much attempt at reforming in the world and that we pay too much attention to reformers. We have two kinds of reformers. Both are nuisances. The man who calls himself a reformer wants to smash things. He is the sort of man who would tear up a whole shirt because the collar button did not fit the buttonhole. It would never occur to him to enlarge the buttonhole. This sort of reformer never under any circumstances knows what he is doing. Experience and reform do not go together. A reformer cannot keep his zeal at white heat in the presence of a fact. He must discard all facts. p. 2 The economic fundamental is labour .

Labour is the human element which makes the fruitful seasons of the earth useful to men. It is men 's labour that makes the harvest what it is. That is the economic fundamental: every one of us is working with material which we did not and could not create, but which was presented to us by Nature. p. 9 As long as we look to legislation to cure poverty or to abolish special privilege we are going to see poverty spread and special privilege grow. p. 10 Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. There is no disgrace in honest failure; there is disgrace in fearing to fail. p. 19. Quotes in: Arch Wilkinson Shaw (1927). The Magazine of Business, Vol. 52, p. 182 Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black. p. 72. Chapter IV, : Remark about the Model T in 1909; this has often been paraphrased, e.g.: "You can have any color as long as it's black." I will build a car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run and care for.

It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one — and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God's great open spaces. p. 73. Chapter IV. Money is only a tool in business. It is just a part of the machinery. You might as well borrow 100,000 lathes as $100,000 if the trouble is inside your business. More lathes will not cure it; neither will more money. Only heavier doses of brains and thought and wise courage can cure. A business that misuses what it has will continue to misuse what it can get. p. 157 Attributed from posthumous publications[ edit ] You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do. As quoted in International Encyclopedia of Prose and Poetical Quotations (1951) by William S. Walsh A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.

As quoted in News Journal [Mansfield, Ohio] (3 August 1965) When I see an Alfa Romeo go by, I tip my hat. As quoted in Alfa Romeo. I creatori della Leggenda (1990) by Griffith Borgeson You will find men who want to be carried on the shoulders of others, who think that the world owes them a living. They don't seem to see that we must all lift together and pull together. As quoted in Wisdom & Inspiration for the Spirit and Soul (2004) by Nancy Toussaint, p. 85 There's enough alcohol in one year's yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for one hundred years. As quoted in Biopolymers, Polyamides and Complex Proteinaceous Materials I (2003) by Stephen R. Fahnestock, Alexander Steinbüchel, p. 395 About Henry Ford[ edit ] What did Henry Ford say about history? - The Barrel Blog The Barrel Blog > What did Henry Ford say about history? Share What did Henry Ford say about history?

The short answer is “history is bunk.” The more accurate answer is what he told the Chicago Tribune in 1916: “History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history that we make today.” Which is why Ford would be far more interested in celebrating Ford Motor Co.’s announcement that it was — at last — entering the lightweight natural gas vehicle market. The company has plastered its website with all kinds of notices about various celebrations of the old man’s birthday, but only the barest of mention is made of the company’s intention to make available in the 2014 model year some F 150 pickup trucks powered by compressed natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas. That policy seems to be very different from what Henry Ford would do.

The man who virtually invented the mass market for automobiles probably would be asking: “What can we do to grow this market?” Most of the US auto producers, including Ford, have entered the heavy- and medium-duty vehicle alternative fuel markets, but right now Ford and Honda are the only US original equipment manufacturers offering consumers CNG powered light-duty vehicles. The argument can be made that in and of itself, Ford’s involvement is no big deal. The US market for natural gas vehicles is not and never has been exactly booming. There are far many more CNG vehicles on the roads in Pakistan now than there are in the US. But that might be changing. Week by week, across the US, service station companies, waste haulers and others announce plans to buy small fleets of CNG vehicles. Here and there, medium-sized gasoline and diesel service station owners announce their intentions to bet the farm and add CNG and maybe LNG refueling islands to their operations. Their commitments are no small deal, as advent of a refueling network is seen as key to jump-starting a full-scale NGV market in North America.

Blog entry continues below… Request a free trial of: Gas Daily Gas Daily offers the most detailed coverage of natural gas prices at interstate and intrastate pipeline and pooling points in major U.S. markets. Gas Daily keeps you informed about complex state and federal regulations that affect competition in the gas industry. The development of the CNG/LNG transportation market bears a strong resemblance to a small snowball rolling down a gentle grade. As it moves, it gets bigger. As the slope becomes steeper, it moves faster and before you know it, you are experiencing an avalanche. So will the day come when NGVs outnumber vehicles powered by other fuels? Who knows? A million things could happen. But not that long ago, some folks were telling a fellow named George Mitchell he was wasting time and money trying to squeeze oil and gas out of shale. And the day may come when shale gas becomes the primary source of US transportation fuel. Henry Ford Biography (Business Personality/Inventor) Birthplace: Greenfield Township, Michigan Best known as: Creator of the Ford Motor Company Henry Ford created the first inexpensive mass-produced automobile -- the Model T -- and revolutionized American industry by developing and refining assembly line manufacturing.

Ford began his working life as a machinist, then became an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company. (He and Thomas Edison remained close friends for decades.) In his spare time Ford tinkered with creating a motorized vehicle, and in 1896 introduced the Quadricycle, a four-wheeled cart with a gasoline engine. (Ford has often been credited with inventing the automobile, though historians now agree he was only one of many people who built motorized cars.) In 1903 the Ford Motor Company was founded, and in 1908 Ford introduced the Model T. By 1924 10 million Model T cars had been sold and Detroit had become the auto-making capital of America. Ford remained one of the country's most famous and influential businessmen until his death in 1947.

Extra credit: The Edsel model car, a famous Ford Motors flop, was named for Ford’s only child, who died in 1943… Ford Motors was later run by Edsel’s son and Ford’s grandson, Henry Ford II… Ford’s personal opinions were sometimes controversial, especially his attacks on the Jewish community and pre-war support of Adolf Hitler … After Ford’s death much of his fortune was used to create the philanthropic Ford Foundation… Ford is often quoted as saying “History is bunk.” The real quote, according to Bartlett’s Quotations, is: “History is more or less bunk.” Ford made the statement in a 1916 interview with the Chicago Tribune. Copyright © 1998-2017 by Who2?, LLC. All rights reserved. Advertisement Advertisement Karen De Coster » Henry Ford’s “History is Bunk” is Bunk Henry Ford’s “History is Bunk” is Bunk Wednesday, November 23, 2005 Posted in category Business Comments Off An article on LRC today mentions the of Mother of All Misrepresented Quotes, Henry Ford’s “History is bunk.” I want to expand on that.

A fuller quote is, “History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.” -1916. Now I’ve spent many hours at the Benson Ford Research Center in nearby Dearborn, MI, which houses the Ford Motor Company historical archives from 1903-1955, and includes just about anything that one is able to research in regards to Henry Ford. Ford is perhaps the most misunderstood and misrepresented of all Americans. Indeed it was his own unenlightenment and coarseness that often got him into trouble. This Ford “quote moment” came about in May of 1916, when a Chicago Tribune reporter was questioning Ford about his posture against the buildup of the American military, and the reporter reminded Ford of the greatness of the British Empire’s military as it stopped Napoleon’s Army from crossing the English Channel. Ford’s full quote followed a blow-off of the reporter’s comment on Napolean (I don’t have the exact cite on me at this time).

Ford, however, did support Wilson in 1916, as the “President who kept us out of the war.” Wilson later talked Ford into running for the U.S. Senate, wherein he narrowly lost the election. As noted by Globe and Mail writer Robert Fulford , several years ago, historian Eugen Weber, in an essay called “Doing History,” did an analysis of Ford’s full meaning by actually looking at all context, and not just the shortened quotation that ran in a May 1916 Chicago Tribune article. A few years ago, in an essay called “Doing History,” Weber analyzed Henry Ford’s famous remark, “History is bunk.” Since Ford was a bigot and a tyrant, that’s usually quoted as an example of ignorance. But Weber used it to demonstrate that we can understand nothing except through context. Ford actually said “History is more or less bunk,” which is slightly different, and he said it in 1916, in the middle of the First World War. Ford thought that devotion to the past prevents us from grappling with the present and may encourage us to make war out of historical grievance.

In 1914 all the European leaders knew history, Ford said, yet they blundered into the worst war ever. On another occasion Ford recalled looking in American history books “to learn how our forefathers harrowed the land”; he discovered that historians barely mentioned harrows, the iron-toothed rakes essential to modern farming. Harrows, Ford argued, meant more in history than guns and speeches. When history “excludes harrows, and all the rest of daily life,” then history is bunk. Maybe Ford felt strongly about harrows because he manufactured them, Weber says; even so, he was right when he argued that history should tell how ordinary people lived. And Ford won. The rise of social history began in the 1920s with the Annales movement in France, and has spread ever since. As Weber says, “The sort of history that Ford wanted is pretty much the history that we do today.” Ford was a great proponent of learning from history, and using the past to promote progress and future, especially concerning, yes, war, as well as captains of industry. Be Sociable, Share!

Question: Who famously said in 1916 "History is more or less bunk"?
Answer: Henry Ford